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New Species from the Deep

Last January, WHOI scientist Chris German led an international research expedition to the Caribbean aboard R/V Atlantis to explore hydrothermal vent sites on the Mid-Cayman Rise, which were first seen in 2010. The expedition, dubbed OASES 2012, brought together an international group of researchers to study the geology, chemistry, and biology of these vents—the deepest (at more than three miles down) and some of the hottest hydrothermal systems known. In a major discovery, biologists found three vent shrimp species, all previously unknown to scientists, and many females carried bright orange eggs.(Photo by Julia DeMarines, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)